Every holiday season, retailers pour resources into making their checkout experiences accessible. They audit shopping carts, test payment flows and ensure screen readers can navigate the final purchase. Then January arrives, and millions of customers with disabilities discover a harsh reality: the returns process is an entirely different story.
The numbers reveal the scale of this problem. According to the National Retail Federation, U.S. retailers processed $890 billion in merchandise returns in 2024, with 16.9% of annual sales returned, and holiday return rates run even higher. Yet according to Baymard Institute research, 94% of the world’s largest ecommerce sites fail basic accessibility compliance.
Customers with disabilities who completed accessible purchases often find themselves unable to initiate returns through the same digital channels, forcing them to call overwhelmed customer service lines or visit stores in person for issues that other customers resolve online in minutes.
This is not just a compliance issue. It is a revenue leak hiding in plain sight.
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The Post-Purchase Accessibility Gap
Most accessibility audits focus on the purchase funnel: product pages, search and checkout. Post-purchase flows — returns portals, refund request forms, order status pages, exchange workflows — often receive minimal attention. These systems are frequently built by different teams, sometimes using different technology stacks, and rarely included in pre-launch accessibility testing.
The result is a fragmented customer experience. A shopper who successfully navigated an accessible checkout may encounter a returns portal with unlabeled form fields, dropdown menus that cannot be operated via keyboard, or image-based return labels with no text alternatives. Customer service chat widgets embedded in returns pages often lack screen reader compatibility. Even the simple act of printing a return shipping label can become a barrier when PDF generation tools produce documents that are inaccessible.
For the 1.3 billion adults globally living with disabilities, these barriers transform a routine return into an exercise in frustration. Many simply give up — keeping unwanted items, avoiding future purchases from that retailer, or worse, sharing their negative experiences with the disability community and beyond.
Where Returns Accessibility Breaks Down
Understanding specific failure points helps retailers prioritize remediation. The most common accessibility barriers in returns processes fall into several categories:
- Form accessibility is the most frequent culprit. Return reason dropdowns without proper ARIA labels that can be read by assistive technology, or error messages that appear visually but are not communicated to screen readers, create immediate barriers. When customers cannot complete the basic intake form, the entire returns flow stops.
- Navigation presents another challenge. Returns portals are often buried three or four clicks deep, lacking consistent breadcrumb trails or skip-navigation links. This forces users relying on assistive technology to repeatedly traverse entire page structures. This issue is especially problematic on mobile interfaces, where screen real estate constraints often lead developers to hide return functionality behind icon-only buttons without text labels.
- Document accessibility is frequently overlooked. Return shipping labels, refund confirmations and exchange receipts generated as images or inaccessible PDFs leave visually impaired customers without documentation they may need for their records. When these documents must be printed, the absence of accessible alternatives compounds the problem.
Finally, real-time communication barriers emerge when chat support, callback scheduling or status update systems rely on visual-only indicators or timing mechanisms that do not accommodate users who interact with technology at different speeds.
Building Accessible Returns Flows
The good news is that fixing returns accessibility does not require rebuilding systems from scratch. Retailers can take immediate steps while planning longer-term improvements:
- Start with an audit focused on post-purchase flows. Include returns initiation, label generation, refund tracking and customer service touch points in accessibility testing. Use both automated scanning tools and testing with actual assistive technology users to identify barriers that automated tools miss.
- Prioritize form remediation. Ensure every form field has an associated label, required fields are programmatically indicated and error messages are announced through ARIA live regions. Test the entire flow with keyboard-only navigation and screen readers.
- Surface returns functionality prominently. Place accessible returns links in primary navigation, order confirmation emails and account dashboards. Do not hide this functionality behind mouseover events or icons without text labels.
- Generate accessible documents. Return labels and confirmation receipts should be available as accessible PDFs or HTML alternatives. When third-party services generate these documents, verify their accessibility or provide alternatives.
- Train customer service teams. When customers with disabilities do need to call, representatives should be equipped to handle returns without requiring the customer to complete inaccessible online steps. This is both a customer service improvement and a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
The Business Case for Accessible Returns
Beyond compliance, offering accessible returns creates measurable business value. When customers with disabilities encounter accessible experiences, they become loyal repeat customers — research shows 54% are more likely to purchase from companies that adopt disability-inclusive values. When they encounter barriers, they share those experiences, and the disability community is tightly networked and vocal about both positive and negative retail experiences.
There is also a broader customer experience benefit. Accessibility improvements frequently benefit all users: clearer form labels, more prominent navigation and better error handling help customers on mobile devices and those multitasking.
Retailers that have invested heavily in accessible checkout should not let that work be undermined by inaccessible returns. The same customers you worked to serve in December will try to return gifts in January. Make sure they can.
Bob Farrell is VP of Solutions Delivery and Accessibility at Applause, where he leads teams helping enterprises deliver inclusive digital experiences. With extensive experience in accessibility testing and quality assurance, Farrell works with retailers and brands to identify and eliminate barriers across their digital ecosystems.
